…and the house he shares with his people.

Maple trees v. Nibbles the Chainsaw

This weekend, with some help from our friend A and his chainsaw Nibbles, we dug our front yard out of the arborical cave it was fast falling into:

Before:

Despite last year’s pruning, the larger maple in front of the house was getting tough to mow under again, so we wanted to take it up a whorl of branches.

Before

The other red maple (next to the driveway) needed to come out entirely. It didn’t get the pruning it needed 20 years ago, and the resulting triple trunk didn’t lend itself to corrective pruning at this point. One of the three main branches also had a (remarkably lucky for us) fall this winter:

which left the remaining branch cracked lengthwise, and only half as thick. We’ve been concerned that a wind or ice storm would bring the other half down, and that we’d be less lucky with where it fell the second time. Plus, it was getting annoying picking the leaves out of the Subaru’s sunroof when low-hanging leaves got closed in. So, regrettably for the tree, it needed to come out.

Nibbles took care of that in short order, and laid waste to the trees:

"Hey, there's a house back there!" - Neighbors

In retrospect, doing it the day after a Friday night local high school graduation was probably poor [lack of] planning on our part. Multiple neighbors on the street (including next door and across the street, oops) were having parties for their graduates, so cars were going by and trying to park around our mountain of tree limbs all day – but at least we were done with most of the sawing by lunch time, and had the yard cleaned up (more or less) by 3pm or so.

A took the bulk of the useable wood home to split, dry, and eventually use as firewood. There was enough to pretty much fill the bed of his truck. The smaller stuff stayed behind for the town to pick up (we’ll have to call them on Monday, given the large volume…). The yard now looks like this:

Not bad. We still have a tall, mature tree in the front yard, which I like, but it doesn’t hide the house anymore, or take up the entire yard. When the scars age a little from the removed branches and it grows a little, it should look just fine.

We still need to grind the stump of the maple that came out, and decide what to plant in its place. Part of that decision will hinge on whether the existing bush stays. Lilacs are front runners, because they won’t grow so tall that they shade the tomatoes – a side benefit to the tree coming out.

Speaking of the tomatoes…

Here’s hoping for a good year!

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Nice job. Lots of work- but well worth the effort. I’m guessing that there were no injuries/accidents?
I peaked at the decoration for the bathroom- really nice. The beach glass is colorful yet subtle. Enjoy.
Mom